Just had a big chip shift occur between Brian Townsend and Mark Seif.
Johannes Strassmann opened with a raise of 16,000 from the hijack seat, and Seif reraised to 41,000 from the button. Townsend then repopped it to 100,000 from the big blind. Strassmann folded, and Seif made the call.
The flop came . Townsend bet 86,000, and Seif called. Both checked the on the turn. When the appeared on the river, Townsend pushed 295,000 chips into the middle, leaving himself just a few behind. Seif tanked for some time, then made the call.
Townsend showed for top pair, top kicker, and Seif mucked. Townsend is now closing in on the million-chip mark with 950,000, while Seif is back down to 155,000.
On a board of Michael DeMichele gets it all in against Lex "RaSZi" Veldhuis. DeMichele showed but Veldhuis rolled over for quads eights!
Veldhuis took the pot and eliminated DeMichelle in a pot of over 600,000. Still stacking chips, Veldhuis appears to be the first player in this $40,000 event to break the million chip mark.
Brian Rast just won a couple of nice-sized pots to move his stack closer to the million-chip mark.
In the first, Rast found himself all in on the turn against Bruno Fitoussi with the board showing . Rast had for aces, but Fitoussi had for two pair. However, the on the river paired the board, counterfeiting Fitoussi's hand and giving Rast the huge 800,000-chip pot. Fitoussi was down to 200,000 after that one.
In the next hand, Rast called Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott's all in of approximately 100,000. Rast showed , well behind Ulliott's . But the flop brought Rast his needed seven -- -- and no king came on the turn or river to save Devilfish. Ulliott is out, and Rast is up to 910,000.
Ville Wahlbeck was looking good to double up when he got it all in preflop with pocket kings against the of Greg Raymer. That is, until the board came giving Raymer trip aces.
We had a couple more eliminations during the final hands before the break.
Chance Walker eliminated David Singer when Walker took his up against Singer's . The board came , and Singer was eliminated. Walker now has 231,000.
Also, Brian Rast added another notch to his belt, knocking out Josh Arieh. Rast had versus Arieh's in that one, but the board of spelled doom for Arieh. Rast is up to 1,015,000.
The table folded around to Antonio Esfandiari in the small blind who raised to 27,000. Chris Moneymaker then reraised to 85,000 from the big blind, Esfandiari pushed his remaining 140,000 or so all in, and Moneymaker called.
Esfandiari
Moneymaker
The flop came , and Esfandiari stood up, recognizing his dim chances. The turn was the , giving him a straight possibility, but the meant Esfandiari's day was done. "Nice hand," he told Moneymaker. "Good luck boys."